Please Note: On many monuments, just the year is engraved. To narrow the timeframe down a little, the month and day listed is from cemetery records for day of burial and so actual death is probably a few days earlier.

Oak Hill was incorporated by the Rhode Island General Assembly on 26 February 1856. Prominent Woonsocket industrialist and abolitionist Edward Harris sold the hill top property overlooking what was to become his most ambitious project – the Privilege Mill complex located near North Main and Privilege Streets in Woonsocket. For this land, which consists of approximately 17 acres, the Oak Hill Cemetery Corporation paid him the princely sum of $1.00.

Hired by Edward Harris, Niles B. Schubarth of Providence laid out the cemetery in 1856 in a meandering, tree filled, almost park like setting that still maintains the feeling of being in a peaceful park. Mr. Schubarth is also responsible for the layout of several other Rhode Island cemeteries including an early part of Swan Point and the redesign of part of the North Burial Ground, both in Providence, R.I.

Evidence indicates that the former Jenkes family cemetery was located at the site of the main gate and would explain the existence of graves that predate the establishment of Oak Hill. These have, at one time, been moved to a site further in the cemetery. Also with the abandonment of Woodlawn and St. James Cemeteries in Woonsocket, some remains were moved to Oak Hill and predate it's establishment. Many prominent men and women from the early formation of Woonsocket are buried here.